Sunday, August 10, 2008

I think we can all agree that this is not in any way a funny comic. Basically it's saying more mopey internet people wish they had kissed someone than wish they didn't, assuming they used the exact same phrasing as Randall used here.

ASTOUNDING!

The fact is that people don't do things more than they do things - for example, I currently regret not eating a burrito for lunch. I also regret not eating a delicious sandwich for lunch, I regret not eating several pounds of chocolate for lunch, and most of all, I regret not starting a multimillion dollar computer company during lunch, because I really would have liked that. It's not that people don't kiss each other enough, Randall, it's that people regret things more than they are glad about things they did do. That's why google gives 3 times as many hits for "I should have" as "I shouldn't have."

And anyway what is your point? That people often regret not kissing other people more than they regret kissing them, so you should kiss people more? Thanks for the tip, randall! Any other helpful advice? Because I have some advice for you: Stop writing a shitty romance advice comic, because we don't really care what you have to say.

And anyway, the "kiss people more" idea was already done way better by qwantz, and you can even buy that one on a shirt:

And as to the alt text - "And nothing for 'I'm glad I saw Epic Movie' " I can only say that currently, there are also no results for "I'm glad I read xkcd."

23 comments:

It proves that you shouldn't attempt to use googles of precise phrases or sentences to try to prove anything about the truth or popularity of the sentiments contained in said phrase or sentence. This seems obvious, but apparently needs to be said.

What bothers me about this blog is when it calls out XKCD for covering material already written about elsewhere. Of all of the critiques possible, this is fairly untenable. The content between the things you compare here is pretty dissimilar, so you're not angry about copying, but apparently angry that someone is discussing something that has been discussed before. I hate to pull the straw man on you, but what is different between what you have said and "Before anyone writes anything that casts kissing in a positive light, they should look at this T-shirt and realize that their effort has been preempted."

Promises - While your comment is valid, I think it misses the point of my post. What I wrote about the dinosaur comics shirt (only a small part of the whole post) was not so much to complain that xkcd was copying an old idea as much as it was to complain that the same idea has already been done better. And also to link to dinosaur comics because I like them...my biggest problems with the content of this comic was the preachy nature and the stupid idea that the number of results was in any way meaningful.

Indeed! The complaint is that 'this has been done before, and better.' It is like when you watch an action movie and despite it being different in terms of plot and premise, you think "Eh, the Matrix did it better." And it's not like Randy isn't reading DC.

I think OP and commenters missed the entire point of this comic, which was that Epic Movie sucked on an enormous level. The humour is not in the chart at all, and if you were looking for it there then you were misguided.

It's been said before on this blog, but I guess not enough: It should add on to the joke, and the joke should be /in/ the comic. It's not like the graph was particularly profound or serious, and the alt text was a sudden and unexpected twist. The comic itself was purely unfunny, and relied entirely on the Epic Movie joke of the alt-text. The alt text should not be what makes the comic.

captcha: nagnon. That is what I feel like we are doing to Randy, nagnon him all the damn time.

-“And anyway what is your point? That people often regret not kissing other people more than they regret kissing them, so you should kiss people more?”

Yeah, that’s more or less what I got from it. What’s your point in pointing out his point?

-“Thanks for the tip, randall! Any other helpful advice?”

So by saying this, are you saying that he’s wrong or what? That he should stop giving advice because you disagree with it? Or do you disagree with it because it’s his advice? That it’s far too obvious? Because, if so, then far too many people fail to follow advice like this.

-“Because I have some advice for you: Stop writing a shitty romance advice comic,”

Why is it such a bad comic? Do you have any reasons other than “I don’t like how it’s worded?”

-“…because we don't really care what you have to say.”

There are certainly some people who would care what he has to say. Don’t make hasty generalizations.

-“And anyway, the ‘kiss people more’ idea was already done way better by qwantz”

Better is far too subjective. What if more people actually prefer this strip? Doesn’t that mean that this strip is better? It’s not exactly the same thing idea anyway.

-“and you can even buy that one on a shirt:”

So if he makes a shirt for it, that will make his better?

-“And as to the alt text – ‘And nothing for “I'm glad I saw Epic Movie'”’ I can only say that currently, there are also no results for "I'm glad I read xkcd.”

Agreed, that was a dumb joke. It fosters unnecessary hatred of the movie.

Now, for the comments:

-“It proves that you shouldn't attempt to use googles of precise phrases or sentences to try to prove anything about the truth or popularity of the sentiments contained in said phrase or sentence. This seems obvious, but apparently needs to be said.”

Do you honestly believe that he doesn’t know this? Is he honestly trying to say, Google results say you should kiss more people, therefore follow them? Even if that is the point, does that mean that he expects people to follow his advice like that?

-“ What I wrote about the dinosaur comics shirt (only a small part of the whole post) was not so much to complain that xkcd was copying an old idea as much as it was to complain that the same idea has already been done better.”

That’s akin to saying that since da Vinci and Michelangelo were such great artists that everyone should stop painting. Does the existence of “The Raven” diminish “Ulalume” in any way, since they both talk about similar subjects? This is morally wrong to say because it prevents artists from working hard since they believe that other people are not going to like their art anyway.

-“I don't think he's trying to teach us anything, or impose his viewpoint on us here. He just found an [interesting] boring Google and it made a [good] very very crappy strip.”

He does not necessarily mean that we should do that based solely on the results of one Google search. Besides, I have no idea where he’s getting these numbers from. I got 8 results for “I should’ve raped her” in quotes and 6 for “I shouldn’t have raped her” in quotes. Without quotes, I got 16,100,000 for both. Rapists are also much less likely to admit to it on the web. Besides, many people use “rape” as “to win by a great amount”, like, “I raped her at Call of Duty.” It is meaningless.

-"I think we can all agree that this is not in any way a funny comic."

Princeton defines funny as "amusing: arousing or provoking laughter". As a result, we can effectively conclude that, if even one person laughed at it, that it becomes funny. It is senseless to make any other definition of something so subjective as funny. If you contend that the majority of people must laugh to make something funny, then how is that decided? Through democratic vote? Judges? God?

-"Basically it's saying…"

To boil down the essence of a joke is wrong. E.B. White says, "Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." Subjecting humor to logic removes the traces of humor from nearly anything, as a major par of humor is the attempt to overcome the mind, to do something other than what the reader expects. Applying logic to humor takes the illogical out of humor, leaving just skin and bones

-”…more mopey internet people…”

“Mopey” is name-calling; throw this word out.

-”…wish they had kissed someone than wish they didn't…”

The comic gives us numbers; we must draw our own conclusions.

-”assuming they used the exact same phrasing as Randall used here.”

Do you have objective proof that it would change if you changed the wording around? If not, then why does it matter? Even if it is true, why does it matter?

-”The fact is that people don't do things more than they do things.”

Agreed.

-”for example, I currently regret not eating a burrito for lunch. I also regret not eating a delicious sandwich for lunch, I regret not eating several pounds of chocolate for lunch, and most of all, I regret not starting a multimillion dollar computer company during lunch, because I really would have liked that.”

Then what did you eat for lunch? If you picked a different thing, then you must have a good reason for it, like “I didn’t have any tortillas at home” or “I can’t make good sandwiches” or “I don’t like heart attacks.” You actively chose to do something else instead of going out to buy tortillas, taking a sandwich-making class, or exercising for ten straight hours. Both are logical. You decide not to get something else for lunch because you don’t want to work too hard for it and waste your life on pointless tasks that will barely make you happier, which increases wisdom. The person in the situation has to make the tough decision of whether to or whether not to, which increases courage. They are different situations completely, and different decisions may be right in each individual case.

-“It's not that people don't kiss each other enough…”

How do you know that people do kiss each other enough? Even if it is not portrayed perfectly in the comic, that hardly means that everything he says is wrong. Don’t be prejudiced.

-“…it's that people regret things more than they are glad about things they did do.”

Sadly for humanity, agreed.

-“That's why Google gives 3 times as many hits for ‘I should have’ as ‘I shouldn't have.’”

Correlation does not imply causation, if I learned nothing else in Statistics. Just because the above is true does not mean this is. And even if it is, so what? So because Google says something, that means it’s automatically wrong?

Yes, the phrasing matters. Have you never done a google search? Well, ok. This comic measures how many people wrote "I should have kissed her" online. However, if you regret not kissing someone, you may not phrase it that way. You may write "I wish I had kissed her," for example. As of now, long, long after the comic came out, the former has 113,000 google hits, the latter, 39,100. So yes, the phrasing does make a difference. You have been proven wrong. It matters because this comic is trying to prove a point using numbers, but I am saying that the numbers he gives us do not accurately convey the data he is talking about, namely, how often someone regrets kissing another person vs. how often they regret not kissing them. The data he gives us is NOT a good proxy for that.

your next few arguments don't really address my point, all of which boils down to: This comic has no broader meaning beyond the uninteresting data it shows us, and no humor value at all.

"correlation does not imply causation" - yes, you've clearly learned a special phrase in high school stat class, but you have to learn to use it right. I'm not implying anything: I'm saying that in general, people regret actions not taken more than actions taken, regardless of whether the action is kissing, eating, jumping, exploding, or whatever. I "prove" this, using the same method Randall uses, by looking at google. I'm not implying anything else, except saying that in this context, the comic's point is even dumber. It does not account for the fact that people regret not doing things more than they regret doing things.

Moving onto the second post:

my point in pointing out his point is that it is incredibly condescending and preachy to tell people what they should do in this sort of matter. I'm glad we agree on the point of the comic though, I could see a lot of people arguing that. It's good to note where we agree.

I'm saying I don't know why I should follow his advice - he's just a guy who writes comics on the internet, not a person who understands anything about human relationships in any way (in fact, he's often demonstrated that he knows a lot less than most people on the matter).

My reasons for calling his comic shitty can be found all over the rest of the website. I was speaking for the community at xkcd sucks when I said we didn't want his advice; if they think I am misrepresenting them I would be happy to talk about it. But really, why would anyone want Randall's relationship advice? Why do they think he knows about this? because he put the word "love" in the subtitle of his comic?

Anyway, in the end, we agree: the stats in this comic are meaningless. So what, in your opinion, is the point of this comic?

1. Consequentialism is the best system of ethics. Consequentialism is the criterion, namely that the most moral action is the one that has the best consequences, most often measured in human happiness. Of course, this is most famously advocated by John Stuart Mill. If you have a competing ethical system, you must specify why yours is better, of course. Consequentialism is important for four reasons.

A. The very system of morality supposes that human suffering is generally bad. A good moral system must seek to minimize harms, best achieved by consequentialism. B. Humanity always chooses the most net beneficial choice because it maximizes the chance that they will get their own dues. Therefore, consequentialism is inherent in minds. C. People have equal worth and value. By doing the greatest good, we prevent prejudice by condemning one group through the perceived superiority of another. D. Moral systems that emphasize individual rights over the community always lead to more rights being lost to individuals since the community is larger.[1]

2. Kissing people is in general morally better. Thomas Gilovich and others conducted a study summarized as, “When looking back on their lives, people in the United States tend to regret things they failed to do more than things they did. But is this tendency universal across cultures, or is it the product of the West's obsession with action and self-actualization? To address this question, the authors conducted five studies in three cultures thought to be less individualistic than the United States-China, Japan, and Russia. Respondents in all three cultures tended to regret-like their counterparts in the United States-inactions more than actions in the long term. Nor did the types of regrets reported by participants in these cultures-overwhelmingly involving the self exclusively rather than the social group-differ from the regrets reported by U.S. samples. These data support the universality of the tendency for inaction to generate greater long-term regret than action.”[2] Therefore, we can see that people in general believe action is better than inaction. Sadly, there are no studies done on whether we prefer to be kissed or not. As a result, we must ask ourselves if in general, more people prefer to be kissed than not to be. This is exceptionally vague. However, we can effectively say that kissing a person has far greater implications in a semi-Pascal‘s Wager deal, since if we do so, at best we have a strong relationship lasting for the rest of our life, and at worst we cause moderate discomfort to the receiver. If we do not, then at best we prevent discomfort and stall for time and at worst, if the other person wants it to, may cause the end of the relationship because he/she sees you as lacking confidence. It is difficult to say by what factor choosing to do so is right and to what factor not choosing to do so is wrong. However, we can say that it is many times greater and that the number of people who do not want to be kissed must be greater by that same factor in order for there to be a net balance. If anything else, than the consequences are better, and, under consequentialism, it is morally better.

3. The comic successfully gets people to act morally. As one person on the XKCD forum said, “I just wanted to thank you for this comic. Seriously. I read it yesterday morning. In the afternoon, I was asked out by the boy I've fallen for pretty hard. But the thing is, I'm going away next year, so it will be long-distance. But I thought about it, and I came back to this comic. It hit me that I'd regret not trying more than I'd regret taking a risk. So now I have a boyfriend.”[3] As a result, we can see that, even if she is the only person to be influenced by this, that it has net positive effects. Therefore, it is morally wrong not to post the comic.

Don’t cuss. It never helps your case. It either makes you seem so dumb you can’t make an actual retort or so overly emotional that you don’t have the logical capability to even argue.

1. “Yes, the phrasing matters…”

Even if the phrasing changes things, why does it matter? Does it make more sense to say that we should choose the one that occurs less often? In general, we can assume that the one that occurs more often is the one that more people prefer. Besides, as my contention three shows, it succeeds in its meaning, as at least one person acted on it.

2. “‘correlation does not imply causation’”

Well number one, you say “people regret actions not taken more than actions taken” but this is mere speculation. I at least proved it with Gilovich’s study, so we can agree on something. But what is your point? People regret things they didn’t do more than things they did do, so we should stop kissing people? I do not understand how this helps you argument at all; you are just reaffirming his statement. How does this not prove that people should kiss others more?

3. “my point in pointing out his point”

Why is it wrong to be preachy? Is this not a good time to do so, as evidenced by my contention three? For example, is it wrong to preach to kids that they shouldn’t take heroin?

4. “I'm saying I don't know why I should follow his advice”

Perhaps his advice is no better than any other person’s. Does this mean that you should discount it? You say, “he's just a guy who writes comics on the internet, not a person who understands anything about human relationships in any way” as if it’s mutually exclusive. Just because he writes web comics does not mean he knows nothing about relationships. Why wouldn’t people want advice? Just because he writes comics? At best this is a meaningless wash.

just FYI, trilly, when you complain about people cussing you reveal yourself to be the emotionally fragile twelve year old you really are. you do not, contrary to popular idiot belief, come across as intellectually superior.

well let's start at the top, again. When kissing, "at worst we cause moderate discomfort to the receiver." Try thinking more creatively. What if you are a dude who kisses your superhomophobic male boss in your office? That's probably pretty unpleasant for him. What if you have an easily communicable disease, like mono, and you give it to someone? In fact, I wonder how many of those "I shouldn't have kissed him or her" posts were in the context of having gotten mono from the kiss.

In any case, the point, that I think you can agree with, is that situations vary. It depends on who you are and who the potential kissee is and what the circumstances are. The point being, Randall shouldn't tell us how to live our lives, given that he has no special expertise and doesn't know our situations.

On your "this is a moral comic" point. What if the dude turns out to be really abusive? Then it's not so great that they are in the relationship. Not that it would be xkcd's fault, of course, it wouldn't be. But you can hardly say it was a moral thing to do. Suppose I am a happily married adult (i am none of these things). I am considering cheating on my spouse. I wonder if I should kiss this person with whom an illicit affair could begin. The comic tells me to go for it. Is that moral? Again, my point is only that you can't go around saying "this comic made the world a better place because of one forum post I found."

On part II:

"don't cuss." Don't tell me what to do. I wanted to express what I thought of your arguments and "shitty" was the best word to use. If you can't handle it get off the internet. Respond to my actual arguments, don't tell me that using the word "shitty" means I don't HAVE arguments (because I do, you just read them).

"The phrasing matters." As I said before, the fact is that this comic is trying to prove a more general point. It is NOT trying to say "look, one random phrase gets more google hits than another random phrase." It is saying that PLUS "therefore, these data have significance and you should kiss people more." The fact that changes in phrasing throw off the numbers is just one of many reasons why the data he presents should not be used to get to the conclusion he gets to (others being that google hits do not represent what the population actually thinks about a topic, and the fact that what people think is not always correct). That is why I cared about the phrasing.

what you have as 2: My point is that you have to factor the "people regret actions not taken more than actions taken" into the data. If people regret non-actions twice as often as they regret actions, then you would expect the results to be twice as high for "should have kissed" than "shouldn't have kissed" without ANY other factor (ie, people make mistakes in their choices). The point is really moot because it all falls under "this chart makes a mockery of science and is worthless" anyway. This is just another reason it is worthless, as above.

3. It can be ok to be preachy. Some people are, after all, employed as preachers. The problem here is that we have no reason to trust randall. He's just telling us his crazy idea. If I am a reformed heroin addict and I tell a kid not to use heroin, that's based off my experience of using heroin and it being terrible for me. He should listen, i hope. Does Randall have more experience with kissing people? I don't think so. If so, he doesn't show it. Assuming that his everyday life gives him the knowledge to tell me how to live my everyday life is condescending, annoying, and the bad sort of preachy.

Relatedly, your #4 - You are misunderstanding me. I am not saying it is impossible for Randall to have more experience with kissin' folks. I'm saying that if he does, he hasn't told us it. We don't KNOW if he has that. I am not going to assume he has it, because it is unlikely. It's not impossible though, so I am open to seeing his evidence that he is The Master of Kisses.

and no, I don't regularly go to my favorite webcomic authors for relationship advice. do you?

I have been responding to your arguments; that was just a note. I just meant that cussing never really helps your argument anyways, so why do it?

1. “The phrasing matters.“

Even if that were true, why would it matter anyway? Does that necessarily change anything? We can say, in general, that there must be some correlation between the number of hits and the popularity, no matter how weak. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves, “Is the moral right?” and “Does this comic portray the moral accurately?” My second contention addresses the first question and the third contention addresses the second question. Even if the statistics are next to meaningless, the comic does achieve what it sets out to do.

2. “My point is that you have…”

You have to provide a warrant for why it matters so much that the comic be scientific as long as proves what it sets out to do. You can’t just say, “this comic does not accurately portray scientific testing, therefore it is bad.” The author likely realizes that this is not accurate science, but ought that to stop one from using it?

3. “It can be ok to be preachy.”

So are you saying that the only people we should listen to about heroin addiction are the ones who have already taken it? If we agree with that, it basically means that, in order to prevent kids from taking heroin, we have to force some of them to take it so that, in the future, they can tell kids that it’s wrong.

4. “You are misunderstanding me.”

You are essentially saying that you have to be an expert on the topic for you to take someone seriously. The problem with that is that, in general, for example, if I have five average people who all tell me not to take heroin, I can assume that they are right, just as if I had a previous heroin addict.

And just because I don’t go to them doesn’t mean they don’t have good advice.

1. Since you gave no arguments against consequentialism, I suppose that entitles me to define it further to rule-utilitarianism, a branch of it. Mauro Simoes writes, “The rule-utilitarian does not assess the consequences of each individual action but the consequences of adopting some general rule, such as ‘keep promises‘. In the event of there being several alternatives, he adopts the rule for which the consequences of its general adoption are better than those of the adoption of the alternative rules.”[4] Basically, the morality of something is based on the net gain in happiness that occurs when we follow a rule, in this case, “If you are single, kissing them will not cause undue physical harm, and are not sure about whether to kiss someone or not, kiss them.” If everyone follows this, we can both agree that, although some individuals will be hurt, there will be a net gain of happiness. This is morally justified because, for example, it is more or less the same as killing one person of equal value to save five or one hundred or a million people. If you disagree with rule-utilitarianism, not only do you have to rebut it but you also have to offer up another moral theory, most likely deontology, and explain why it is better.

2. Situations vary, but they all fall under the law of rule-utilitarianism. Besides, without a general system of morality, it would be nearly impossible to measure morality. No moral system can account for every possible situation, so we pick one and adhere to it as well as possible. If we had to reevaluate our choices based on every single change in situation, we would never accomplish anything. “Should I eat the peanut butter sandwich or the ham sandwich? What if today starts with the letter T? What if I’m standing over there? Would one of them be better if I was wearing green socks?” Certainly, there are some ways in which it would be worse, but for the greater good in general.

3. That did force me to amend my rule, admittedly, to include single. Cheating is morally wrong under rule utilitarianism because if everyone did it, all bonds of trust would break and anarchy would reign. However, if all “single” people did so, there would be a net benefit, therefore it is morally just.

1. Your consequentialist argument is both wrong and irrelevant. It's wrong because you don't have any reason to think that more kisses = more happiness. Give me a single reason to think that this is true, and I will consider debating further.

Actually, I won't, because it's not relevant. All I'm arguing here is that xkcd sucks, particularly in this comic, i don't give very much of a shit (hey! i said it again!) about philosophy. Randall is not arguing anything about happiness, hell, he isn't really arguing anything at all. So you are basically standing in and making an argument claiming that it is what he is trying to say. But again, you have no reason to think this.

2. Also not relevant. We are taking about a comic, nothing more. Tell me exactly what you think Randall is trying to say, not what you think you want to say. I don't care what your opinions are outside the context of this comic (and I don't think you care about mine outside the context of this comic) so let's try to get distracted with "i read a big word on wikipedia" nonsense.

On to defending my arguments:1. No, we cannot say that. Google the following phrase, in quotes: "a ham sandwich and a diet pepsi." I say this because right now I really want to eat and drink "a ham sandwich and a diet pepsi," and I bet at least 1 million americans would agree with this, if I said it around lunch time (that's 0.33% so I think it's a safe call) Yet the phrase has NO google results! ASTOUNDING. Why do you think there is a correlation between google hits and actual feeling among people? There is not. Anyone can write anything online, it does not suddenly represent deep desires on mankind just because it got posted somewhere.

2. If you are trying to prove a rule, then yes, you should be scientific about it. Here, randall is trying to prove the point "you should kiss people more" and his "evidence" is google (I assume you agree with this sentence at least?). But the problem is his data does not in any way prove any part of his argument. The ONLY thing you can use this data for is the highly specific and incredibly boring fact that searching those phrases on google at that time turned up that many hits, for him. Nothing more. NOTHING. So using that data for ANY purpose other than the trivial fact that it exists, is wrong.

3. Good job twisting my words. Here's my point again in simpler words: What experience does Randall have that gives him any expertise in this matter? Answer that and we may get somewhere in this debate.

4. This point, like so much of your writing, is not relevant. Randall is not 5 average people telling me a fact, he is one guy telling me one practically made up fact. We get back to the same question: I am willing to trust randall on this matter once he or you provides me with a single good reason to do so.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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